Chapter 166 - Minghue Tea House

"Absolutely correct. I know that I was not on my best behavior before. I was too worried about you all the time and even tried to make sure that you don't do certain things, but I'm not gonna do that anymore," Ruoshan had confessed as he agreed with Lord Yueliang's words.

"After learning more about you, we all now know that you are strong enough to face any challenge. You are smart enough to make your own decisions. Of course, we will share our views on certain points but no one will force them on you. In the end, you are free to go along with your own choices." The Evernight Lord had continued.

Li Ming was so shocked by their words back then, but seeing how they all supported her had brought a smile to her face that night.

However, when she finally replied, she had noticed the soft twitch on Wen Guiying's lips which indicated that he was also touched by her reply.

"I'm really thankful to you all for understanding and supporting me. But, I'm a part of our training session because I want it that way."

She remembered the surprising look that had crossed Hei Long's eyes. The Demon Prince had been also present there during the dinner, though he didn't speak to her even once.

"I may be a smart, intelligent, hard-working, and powerful person according to you, but there is still a lot more that I need to learn. Though I'm both mentally and spiritually strong but physically I'm very weak. I need to improve my physical and cultivation levels and the Supreme Immortal is helping me in the best way that he could." 

Her eyes had roamed over her mates as she had continued, "I'm a part of this training session because I want it, not because I'm being forced. I know all of you are worried about me and whenever you ask me to stop from doing something, that's for my own good and  I respect that."

She had always known that whenever any of them pressured her to do or learn something, it was because they knew that she would need it for her future.

Moreover, none of them ever threatened her to agree with their demands. They never hurt her and neither did they get angry at her.

She knew that they needed to create a balance in their bond. She needed to listen to them and respect their opinions even if she would not always agree with them. 

Similarly, they would also need to learn to listen to her decisions and respect them, even if they did not always agree with them.

That night all of them promised to respect and support each other's decisions, though they were also allowed to voice out their opinions whether did they agree or not.

----

"Miss Li, this is the copy of customers that visited the Breezing Flowers Inn during the last month." Sue Mei said as she passed Li Ming a notebook.

The four assistants of hers, Sue Mei, Lei Xiao Ting, Lei Yong, and Zhou Han, had been a very strong and perfect addition to her business. 

The four of them had been officially working for her for the past five months. The four of them helped her business a lot.

Li Ming had made sure to train them as perfectly as she could and she was happy with the results.

The three of them, Lei Yong, Lei Xiao Ting, and Zhou Han, were as fluent in their job as any professional. 

And Sue Mei made sure that the final report that they presented in front of Li Ming was as flawless as possible.

Li Ming checked the data that the three assistants, Lei Yong, Lei Xiao Ting, and Zhou Han, had collected throughout the past month.

Sue Mei's duty was to make sure that the final report that they would be presenting to Li Ming, was correct and perfectly detailed.

Within the next half an hour, Sue Mei had explained the entire data of the notebook to Li Ming with some additional information.

"You guys are doing so good. Well done." Li Ming praised Sue Mei and took out four spiritual cores out of her space and handed them over to the young lady.

Each spiritual core was red in color. There were a total of seven colors in the spiritual cores - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

The Red-colored spiritual core carried ten days worth of spiritual qi stored in it.

The Orange-colored spiritual core carried six months worth of spiritual qi stored in it.

The Yellow-colored spiritual core carried one year worth of spiritual energy stored in it.

The Green-colored spiritual core carried five years worth of spiritual qi stored in it.

The Blue-colored spiritual core carried ten years worth of spiritual qi stored in it.

The Indigo-colored spiritual core carried a hundred years worth of spiritual qi stored in it.

The Violet-colored spiritual core carried a thousand years worth of spiritual qi in it.

Lord Yueliang had taught her how to create the spiritual cores around two months ago when she spent a night in the Moon Manor cultivating in the strange but powerful and dense spiritual qi that flowed through the atmosphere of the Moon.

"Alright, I'll add the data to the previous ones. These spiritual cores are a gift for the four of you. You can leave now." Li Ming said as she dismissed Sue Mei.

Her office which was built on the fourth floor of the Minghue Tea House was overflowing with the sweet and spicy fragrance of the tea that a maid had just served her.

Minghue Tea House was built exactly where the Jing family's Jewelry shop had been previously.

When she first visited the Jin Empire around ten months ago, that day she went to the herb market to buy different herbs, spices, and different kinds of teas.

She also got a pouch of tea seeds from the nymph leader. Since the pixies were already taking care of the magical mansion and Xiao Tiantang, they immediately had taken over the tea farming.

By the time the new four stories shop was ready to be opened during the month of December, the little fairies had already filled a storeroom with jars of different kinds of teas, spices, and herbs.

Li Ming also created a little supplement that appeared like a small round white pill. It was refined by adding various herbs which strengthened the meridians in the body.

The supplement was added to the tea before being served to the customers.

She also created another supplement back in winter which helped in keeping the body warm during the cold weather. She had made sure that the supplements never left any side effects.

The second supplement was specially made for the poor citizens of the Capital City, who couldn't afford warm clothes or food on their own.

The tea was served to them throughout the winters completely free. Not only the poor citizens but anyone was allowed to grasp a cup of warm tea from the ground floor of the Minghue Tea House. 

"Are you busy right now?" 

A soft voice attracted her attention as Li Ming's eyes flew to the open window of the room.

She watched the little black dragon, which was barely the size of her palm, sitting there on the window sill.

She didn't even get the chance to reply before the dragon landed on her table.

His cute small adorable eyes looked up at her with pure innocence. However, Li Ming couldn't be fooled by that look of the dragon.

"Am I not cute enough, Ming'er? Why are you not petting me like you do to Snowy and Mallow?" The dragon asked as he gave her his best puppy eyes.

Yeah, imagine a dragon giving you puppy eyes!

Li Ming shook her head at Zhang Yong's cute antics. The two of them had grown even more closer after he revealed the truth about his identity and their bond.

At Wen Guiying's suggestions, the two of them, Li Ming and Zhang Yong, had started cultivating together. 

Since their spiritual energy was combined with each other and her spiritual energy was weaker than Zhang Yong's spiritual energy, cultivating together was a great option for her to increase the strength of her spiritual energy.

For the past ten months, the two of them had been cultivating together without skipping even a single day.

Though their places for cultivation changed from time to time. For some time they cultivated in the Xiao Tiantang, then they cultivated at the foot of a mountain ranges in the Jin Empire.

Another time, they cultivated on the land of the beautiful moon. On some rare occasions, Lord Yueliang also joined them during their cultivation time on the Moon.

Currently, Li Ming was a first-level Master Cultivator. In these past eight months, she had developed in many areas.

Her alchemy levels had increased as she experimented on various new and unique ideas of important and rare pills.

Her physical power was far better than before, though she still had a very long way to go.

She had played around with nearly thousands of spells and charms to create things that would help her and her people.

And with the help of these experiments she had ended up forming two brilliant ideas back in winter.

One idea was for the Dongji village as during the entire winter season, the village usually got covered in snow.

While the second idea was for Prime Minister Zhu as his people had once again headed towards the Dongji village.